AND REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR BY JAMES J. WILLIAMSON Author of “Mosby’s Rangers” Illustrations by B. F. WILLIAMSON WEST ORANGE, N. J. 1911 Copyright, 1911 BY JAMES J. WILLIAMSON...

It is not my intention in my prison diary to discuss the constitutional or legal question of arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of non-combatants, but to present to my readers a picture of the daily routine of prison life as I saw it, together with incidents related to me by fellow-prisoners. Conditions in the Old Capitol differed in many respects from the prison camps. Prisoners in the Old Capitol were mostly civilians, except where soldiers (either prisoners of war or men charged with offenses

Prison life was much the same North or South in its general features, having its discomforts and privations, its days of worry, its longings and its disappointments, combined with that chafing under restraint, which is a feeling common to all men. Yet the sufferings of prisoners could have been alleviated in the North to a greater degree than was possible at the South, where in most cases the distress was due to lack of means to relieve it. The Confederate Government could not do for Federal pri

Air—Villikins and His Dinah. This would be one feature of the program, with “Maryland, My Maryland,” “Dixie,” “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” and a song, the chorus of which ran—“Ain’t You Glad You’re Out of the Wilderness?” but which a few months later was changed to “Ol’ Joe Hooker, Come Out of the Wilderness.” When the singing would lag a little, Fax Minor, on whom the sound of music or singing caused a contraction and extension of the muscles, producing an effect like pulling the strings of a supple

Thursday, March 26. —Could not sleep last night. Got up about twelve or one o’clock, took a smoke and then lay down until near daylight. I then got up and went down to the prison yard. I understand a batch of prisoners were brought in about eleven o’clock last night. I heard a great tramping of feet at that time. At three o’clock in the afternoon, all who expected to go to Richmond were called down in the yard and the roll called by Superintendent Wood. When he came to my name he asked where I w

Arriving at Petersburg, we were marched through the city to Parole Camp at Model Farm Barracks. Here we went to headquarters and registered our names. Bennett took me to his quarters and gave me some supper—bacon and crackers. On the boat we had nothing but bread and coffee toward the last, and the meat was quite a luxury. It was of good quality, too. Tuesday, March 31. —When I awoke this morning I had to turn over two or three times to supple my joints. The bunk I slept in was hard boards, and

[The Missourians named were held here awaiting transportation South for exchange.] Hon. Jefferson Davis, in a letter written from Beauvoir, December, 1888, said: “Nearly a quarter of a century has elapsed since war between the States ceased. Has the prejudice fed on the passions of that period ceased with the physical strife? Shall it descend from sire to son, hardened by its transmission? Or shall it be destroyed by the full development of the truth, the exposure of the guilty, and the vindicat

Much has been written and spoken of the “dead-lines” in Southern prisons. One would suppose they were unknown in Northern prisons. The fact is, they were as common at the North as in the South. There was not a Northern prison-camp but had its “dead-line,” and at all these prisons men were shot at and many killed for passing over them . And there was no reason to complain of this, for the lines were plainly marked, and it was known that anyone attempting to cross them would be shot. So, any man—n

The True History of the Wirz Case. I was living in Washington at the time Captain Wirz underwent the travesty of a trial—a farce which ended in a tragedy. I frequently met and conversed with Louis Schade, his counsel, and his associate, Judge Hughes. I also met and conversed with witnesses on the trial. Rev. Father Boyle and Father Wiget, who attended Wirz during his imprisonment and ministered to him in his last moments on the scaffold, were both warm personal friends of mine—Father Wiget parti

From the diary kept by Wirz while in prison during the progress of the trial, I make a few extracts, yet enough to show the manhood, the nobility of the man: “Old Capitol Prison, Oct. 1, 1865. “Everything is quiet around me. No sound but the measured steps of the sentinel in the corridor can be heard. The man who is sitting in my room is nodding in his chair. Poor, short-sighted mortals that we all are! This man is here to watch me, to prevent any attempt I might make to take my own life. My lif

After more than forty years had passed an act of tardy justice was performed, when a monument was unveiled at Andersonville, in memory of the man who was the victim of cruel injustice and put to death for crimes of which he was innocent. The monument is a shaft of gray and white, 35 feet in height and simple in design. The base is formed by four square slabs of stone superimposed in the form of a pyramid. Above this are two heavy blocks of stone, on the four sides of which are carved the followi

As detailed accounts of this famous raid have been so often published I will not repeat the story here. A little incident connected with it, however, may be new to some of my readers: In October, 1906, there was a reunion of the old-time Telegraphers’ and Historical Association held in Washington, D. C. From a special dispatch to the Baltimore Sun of October 11th, I take the following: “Another interesting war-time telegrapher attending the Convention is R. F. Weitbrec, now a wealthy contractor